Jasmin Sandelson

Jasmin is a writer and sociologist working at the intersection of storytelling and social justice. Her publications include reported, research-based, and academic texts, as well as personal nonfiction.

Jasmin’s first book, My Girls: The Power of Friendship in a Poor Neighborhood (2023: University of California Press), used long-term participant observation to showcase the power of friendships between teen girls living in Boston-area housing projects. Rather than perpetuating tropes about ‘danger’ and ‘disadvantage’ in poor neighborhoods, My Girls reveals young people’s creativity and resilience.

She is currently finishing a literary memoir, In This House We Flourish, about coming out in adulthood; (both types of) queer adolescence; ending a marriage; and remaking a life. A second in-progress book project blends memoir and research to reckon with intergenerational abuse and family mythology.

Jasmin’s essays appear in The Sewanee Review, The Rumpus, The Georgia Review, Longreads, Hobart, and elsewhere, and her writing has been supported by the Axinn Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Born and raised in London, Jasmin has a PhD in Sociology from Harvard University, an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from New York University, and BA in Social Science from the University of Cambridge. Currently, she is Research Manager at The Square One Project, a national narrative-change initiative focused on criminal justice reform, housed at Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn.